Background

Heather Terrell (Marie Benedict) was born in 1969 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Education

Terrell is a graduate of Upper St. Clair High School in Pittsburg. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus in History and Art History, and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law.

Career

While practicing as a lawyer, Marie dreamed of a fantastical job unearthing the hidden historical stories of women - and finally found it when she tried her hand at writing. She embarked on a new, narratively connected series of historical novels with The Other Einstein, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein's first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare.

She made the transition to young adult fiction with the series Fallen Angel - and continues it now with The Books Of Eva. While writing her latest series, Heather created an Educators' Guide - with the guidance of a team of educators - and speaks extensively at schools and libraries across the country.

Achievements

• Marie Benedict embarked on a new and successful series of historical novels with The Other Einstein, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein's first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. The next novel in this series is USA Today bestselling Carnegie's Maid, which released in January of 2018, and the book that followed is the New York Times bestseller The Only Woman In The Room, which published in January of 2019.
  
  Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare.

Works

More photos

• audio book

  • Fallen Angel

    (The end...or a new beginning? As Ellie comes to grips wit...)

    2010

• book

  • The Chrysalis

    (Haarlem, Holland, seventeenth-century: The city’s chief m...)

    2008
  • The Only Woman in the Room

    (Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Naz...)

    2019
  • Brigid of Kildare

    (Fifth-century Ireland: Brigid is Ireland’s first and only...)

    2010
  • Lady Clementine

    (In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husban...)

    2020
  • The Other Einstein

    (Mileva Maric was studying physics at an elite university ...)

    2016
  • Carnegie's Maid

    (Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the ...)

    2018

Views

Benedict/Terrill has been drawn to stories of strong women, especially unsung heroines, both real and fictional. A booklover from childhood, it was a gift from her aunt that sparked her imagination - Marion Zimmerman Bradley's tale about the women of the Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon. As she told Book Reporter: "This book opened my eyes to the hidden voices and truths lurking in history and legend - particularly the buried histories of women - and set me on an admittedly circuitous path toward a life of uncovering those unknown stories and memorializing them through fiction."

Quotations: "I’ve found it very tricky to incorporate long-standing religious stories and beliefs in my fiction. I always try to be respectful of those beliefs and traditions, while at the same time shed new, interesting light on those stories. I also want to make sure I don’t alienate readers who do not adhere to those religious beliefs."

"One of the major challenges I faced in shifting from the historical, adult realm to the young adult world was to make sure that my characters ring true to the readers. I try to be careful that the characters’ dialogue, their relationships, their concerns, the setting, and even the characters’ clothes seem authentic... as it’s been a few years since I was a teenager! Otherwise, I write my stories the same way, because I know both sets of readers are intelligent, inquisitive and imaginative."

"I made the decision to utilize the present tense for the past scenes for two primary reasons. First, I wanted the historical scenes to feel timeless, and to me, the present tense conveyed that agelessness better. Second, I am intrigued by the idea that history and art resound in our everyday lives, in ways of which we may be unaware, and it seemed as though the present tense could bring the historical scenes forward in time to further that concept."

"When I was a very young child, my aunt would take me to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, to the Hall of Architecture in particular. And there, before the façades of architectural masterpieces from centuries gone by, I became entranced by the fine arts and began to perceive them as a window into the past."

Personality

Terrell dreamt of becoming an archaeologist and she also has three favorite museums: the Carnegie Museums, the Frick Art & Historical Museum, and Fallingwater.

Interests

• history, anthropology, archaeology

• Writers

  Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Ya’a Gyasi, Marion Zimmerman Bradley, Claudia Gray, Cassandra Clare, Charlaine Harris, Suzanne Collins, Stephanie Meyer

• Sport & Clubs

  yoga

Connections

Terrell lives in Pittsburgh with her husband Jim Terrell, whom she met in 2002, and their sons Jack and Ben.

Father:

Coleman Benedict

Mother:

Jeanne Benedict

husband:

Jim Terrell

Son:

Jack Terrell

Son:

Ben Terrell

Friend:

Kathleen Elizabeth George

She is an American professor and writer best known for her series of crime novels set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She teaches theatre arts at the University of Pittsburgh and fiction writing at the Chatham University Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Friend:

Nancy Martin

She is one of the famous American authors of the suspense, mystery, romance, and historical fiction genres. The novels written by her have been very successful all over the world and have helped her to establish herself as one of the prominent authors of her time.

Friend:

Rebecca Drake

She is the author of the novels Don't Be Afraid, The Next Killing, The Dead Place, which was an IMBA bestseller, and Only Ever You, as well as the short story "Loaded," which was featured in Pittsburgh Noir.

References

• Official website of published author Marie Benedict
• Heather Terrell's Official Website